This past week I have really been trying to use my DSLR Sony A350 better. I'm doing alot more manual shots to try and get better pictures. After this update let me know what you guys think.

Here are some pratice shots.

Now for the real update. I forgot to mention I got a 50mm fan for the motherboard.

I also ordered some cable clips that I saw in another build. I think they will help to keep all my cables nice and straight.

I orderd several sheets of 1mm aluminum so I could make a mid plate. (Got lots of extra incase I screw up.

Measured and marked.

Now I didn't take any of the cutting and bending as that is boring. So this is what it looked like after that.

Pretty level

After that I had to find a way to keep it stable so I added some tabs. I attached them with some JB weld. These ones will be secured to the 5.25" bays.

And this one is just to keep it in place.

Now it sits nice and flush.

Now you saw where I am putting the pumps so I drilled a hole for the fill port to the pumps.

And attached the pump.

Next I marked the spots for the fan holes. They are actually a little bit smaller than the 180mm fans because I need the floor space for cables, tubing holes and acessories but it won't effect the performance too much.

I still need to mark it but I have to cut some away under the 24-pin connector for the cable.

I sleeved the 24-pin cable and 8-pin cable.

The heatshrink isn't great so I may redo that.

Then I did some cable managment with some P-Clips

And the rainy season is back here in the Congo! We get some decent sunsets because of the weather.

Now for some more pratice shots.

And the best molex pin remover ever!!!

Sorry for all the photos but the only way to get better is to practice!

First off, you must have taken a break from modding because your work looks a little rusty.

Seriously folks, this is going to look real steampunk. Amazing stuff.

And dude, you live in Africa?!?! You got to pet lion cubs!?!?

Man, some guys got all the luck.

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lol. Ya we are here till December then off to the next adventure. I wouldn't call it luck.... nothing really lucky about living were we do. The DRC is probably one of the worst countries in the world to be. (aside from the warzone).

lol. Ya we are here till December then off to the next adventure. I wouldn't call it luck.... nothing really lucky about living were we do. The DRC is probably one of the worst countries in the world to be. (aside from the warzone).

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Yeah, I kinda I know it's not a picnic down there. But still, it's Africa! And lion cubs!

DRC; Had to Google that fuganater lol I thought it was Congo but wasn't sure I'm not very familiar with Africas geography unfortunately but the vids/pics we get over here the place looks beautifull! Of course there is a lot of "not so nice" places but there are also lots of places you wont find anywhere else on earth!

I hope things continue to progress there and the people continue to rise above the ignorance/hatred/greed...

I had to take one of the Acrylic layers off the bottom so the pump top would fit under the 240mm rad in the bays.

Put the pumps on with the Bitspower Mod Kit.

50mm fan grill. Not sure if I will use this or not.

Some fan cables. 1 for each rad.

EK Uni Brackets for the Res (These are so I can mount the res to the 5.25" bays)

And some thermal cleaner so I can get some nice clean chips.

Now for the modding!

I decided to venture in to heatshrinkless cables for the ones you can see at least. Here is my journey.

All the sleeve ready to go.

You have to have the sleeve almost touch the 2 prongs on the ATX pin.

I put some electrical tape on between 1/4" and 1/8" away from the end of the sleeve to keep the sleeving tight and to use as a guide.

Next you use a soldering iron to melt the sleeve to the ATX pin. Don't melt more that what is marked. (Obv the tape is in the way)

Now all you have to do is melt it just a bit more to make it cone shaped basically to fit into the connector.

And here it is all done.

Here is how my 24-pin cable came out.

And the 8-pin

I cut the holes for the fans in the mid plate and a cut-out for the 24-pin cable.

I made this photo so I could figure out which leather I would use for the midplate. I decided on the top one.

Here is how I was originally going to have the cables for the GPUs

But since I'm going heatshrinkless I can't do that so I did this instead.

2 of the cables were straight 6-pin cables but the other 2 were made for 1 GPU each so I had to cut off the extra link.

Now for a sweet mod!

Coming apart...

Presto Chango!!

Did the same thing to the MOFSET block.

Then I painted the SB heatsink.

Looks good!

And then the 50mm fan.

Now that all really ads some pop to the motherboard.

Since I decided to use the darker leather on the doors and here is what the first one looks like.

I also painted the mesh for the bottom gold too. Will be installed in the next update.

That's it for this update.

I'm working on the pump placement and routing to get the water from the res to the pumps effectively. Might need to do some fancy piping under the midplate with extensions and angled adapters... Hopefully some more gear will arrive this week so I can keep moving!

Gregor was able to send me a few things. EK-Multioption 250 Basic Res, 8x 90 Degree rotary fittings and a T-Shirt.

Now for the update. It is kinda big because I have not had time to write it up so here goes.

I had to figure out a way to get the water from the res into the dual pump top. A direct run would not work so here is what I had to fashion out of fittings I had laying around. Kinda ugly but it works and its out of sight.

Got out my Curcial M4 128GB SSD and installed it on the Silverstone bay.

Found a 320GB HDD so I'll put that on there for now. I'm trying to get a 512GB SSD for games.

Now to figure out how to wire them all and make it look good...

I also cut the Slim ODD cable so only the power cable is left. I have to use a longer SATA cable than what came with it.

The 3-cable and 4-cable clips came in.

Added a bunch of them to the PCI-E cables and they look pretty good.

I finally got all the holes cut in the midplate so I put the leather on it.

Then I used a furniture marker to color the edges since its fabric and the back of the leather is white.

I like it.

Now for a fun mod. Old GTX 560Ti backplates.

Traced

Cutting and drilling is boring so I skipped that part... and now we have... leather backplates!

And gold brackets

I also covered the SLI bridge with some leather.

Looking good IMO...

I put the res in and added some random fitting to see how it will all work.

I had to make some brackets for the midplate to keep it level. The 24-pin cable pulls it down a bit in the back. Pics later of how they are mounted. (Ya I forgot to take them...)

But here is how it looks from the front.

Top panel before...

And after!

Paint the mesh gold and it looks great!

Painted all the thumb screws gold.

And installed.

Random shot...

Vacuum tubes!!

Playing around with how they will be sitting. (Not sure of final setup yet)

Cut the leds off the bottom so they sit flat on the midplate. I'll drill a hole under them for the LED.

I cut some small pieces of acrylic to hold the LEDs under the mid plate.

PROBLEM! I bought Yellow single LEDs instead of Amber so they don't match!!

I put in a order yesterday for some Amber ones and resistors.

I think we need some lighting.

Using a fan bus to power the LEDs

I bought 2 of these new ones since I only have 1 of the above one. (They have to be the same since I'm OCD like that)

I'm not set on only having Amber lights so lets add some switches so I can have white too!